Guide
The museum began on 9 September 1952 as a gallery in the Kültürpark, in the building of the ministry of education designed by Bruno Taut, and later moved to premises on Atatürk Bulvarı. It was the first thing the state did for İzmir in the field of the plastic arts.
Its opening gave artists in the city somewhere to show their work and brought the annual state exhibitions to İzmir as well. From its first year the gallery both mounted exhibitions and ran painting courses for amateurs, and it did a good deal to enliven the artistic life of the city.
1973 brought important changes. Through the efforts of Turgut Pura, then its director, the gallery became a museum and moved to a building in Konak. Much of the credit for the rich collection of painting and sculpture the museum holds today belongs to him.
The museum stayed in Konak from 1973 until 2022. After the earthquake of 30 October 2020, felt across the region, it moved back into the Kültürpark and began work again on 25 March 2022, and in April 2023 it reopened within the İzmir Culture and Art Factory.
Among the painters represented are Şeker Ahmet Paşa, İbrahim Çallı, Hikmet Onat, Zeki Kocamemi, Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu, Nuri İyem, Fahrelnisa Zeid, Neşet Günal, Adnan Çoker, Neşe Erdok and Devrim Erbil. There are important works by sculptors as well, among them Turgut Pura, Kuzgun Acar, Zühtü Müridoğlu and Ali Hadi Bara, and by the ceramic artists Füreya Koral, Bingül Başarır, Mustafa Tunçalp and Mehmet Tüzüm Kızılcan.
